Demon Preface

"Crack..."

"Crack... crack..."

It was impossible to tell what the sound was. When it reached the ears, it seemed able to pierce through the body and rush straight into the soul, making one involuntarily shiver several times in this frigid snowy night.

The bleak north wind wailed through heaven and earth. Flurries of white snow danced in the wind, shredding the vault of the sky into fragments as layer upon layer blanketed the land. From afar, it looked as though the world had been wrapped in silver, desolate as far as the eye could see.

This was not late at night, but merely dusk. Yet the dimness of the sky was no different from night, weighing heavily upon the heart until one could scarcely breathe. Upon that silver earth stood a gigantic silhouette—a majestic city, like some colossal beast bearing down upon the land.

At the center of the city stood a towering altar shaped like a seven-pointed tower. Pitch-black from top to bottom, it pierced the clouds and stood unmoving amid the howling wind and blizzard. Mixed into the mournful wind sweeping across the altar came those cracking sounds, drifting into the distance with a primitive ruggedness and a strange, lingering charm.

"Is there still hope... is there...?"

A hoarse murmur drifted from the altar through the wind and snow, seeming to blend with the gale until it was faint and hard to distinguish.

"If there is hope, where is it? If there is no hope, then why did you let me see it?!" The voice sounded almost mad, nearly hysterical, its roar echoing through the nine heavens.

Below the altar stood countless figures clad in straw rain capes, silently waiting there. At a glance, there were several hundred thousand of them—men and women alike—densely packed around the altar. Though they did not move, a feverish zeal burned within them, as though they would give everything for a single word from the person atop the altar.

The snow fell even harder.

"Since you let me see it, there must be hope. But where... where is that hope?!" The hoarse voice atop the altar was bitter, steeped in sorrow, lingering for a long time without fading.

"Today, Bright Yellow returns astray, Three Tranquilities break new ground. Snow and wind come forth; one creation in ten thousand ages. This old man shall divine Barbarian Heaven once more!" The voice suddenly swelled. No one knew what method had been used, but the wind and clouds in the sky changed color. All the falling snowflakes abruptly froze, then swept backward from every direction, roaring together as they gathered and made heaven and earth tremble!

No more snow fell from the sky. Every snowflake gathered into a gigantic, snow-white mystic dragon. The instant it formed, it raised its head and let out a mournful shriek toward the heavens. The sound was so piercing that everyone who heard it felt their minds quake, as though they would be torn apart by that cry.

Streams of shocking blood seeped from the snow dragon's body, quickly spreading over its entire form until the snow dragon became a blood dragon. With a mournful howl, it twisted its body and shot violently toward the sky like a savage meteor piercing the heavens, as though it meant to blast a hole through the firmament and open a path of hope.

It moved with such speed that in the blink of an eye, it had crossed into the boundless distance. Amid roaring thunder, the dragon seemed to slam into some invisible barrier. Heaven and earth shook, and a buzzing tremor spread in all directions. The blood dragon shrieked miserably once more, its body collapsing layer by layer at a rate visible to the naked eye.

At the instant it was about to shatter completely, the several hundred thousand silent people below the altar all formed hand seals, bit the tips of their tongues, and sprayed out mouthfuls of blood. Drawn by some unseen force, that blood shot upward like a sea of blood rising into the sky, rushing toward the crumbling blood dragon. Once it fused with the dragon, its collapse slowed, and it surged toward even higher heavens.

As the blood dragon flew higher and higher, it drew everyone's gaze. But at that moment, its entire body suddenly shuddered. After releasing a shriek that spread across tens of thousands of miles, it could no longer stop its body from collapsing. It turned into countless blood-colored snowflakes and drifted down. From afar, heaven and earth had already been dyed into a crimson Yellow Springs.

At that very moment, as the blood dragon collapsed, a voice utterly different from its mournful howl came from its mouth!

"Woe..."

"Woe..." At the very center of the altar's summit sat an old man in a purple robe, cross-legged. His face was covered in wrinkles and mottled with brown spots. He murmured with his eyes open, yet there was no light within them. He was clearly blind.

Before him lay a complete spine, emitting a ghostly white radiance. In his right hand, he held a stone shard, resting upon the thirteenth vertebra.

His hollow eyes silently faced the sky. After a long, long while, he let out a heavy sigh.

"Tell King Yu... this old man has done all he could..."

As he spoke, his right hand holding the stone shard moved once again along that strange spine. It scraped against the beast bone, producing crackling sounds that drifted into the distance. His figure looked bleak, blending into that sound and revealing a sorrowful loneliness and decline.

"As the Barbarian Duke of the Great Yu Dynasty, the world I see is one you cannot see..."

"You... cannot see..."

"Hope..."

This chapter is a preface. There will be another chapter tonight. The new book has been released; saves, recommendations, and clicks are extremely important. Er Gen needs encouragement!!!

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